Health

Kick your legs up and do the Spa Cha Cha… Spa Week’s not really over yet! Those $50 treatments are still kicking! It’s true. Every year, more than half of our spas decide that they are going to extend their Spa Week specials for another week, or even until the end of the month. Why? Many spas book up entirely for Spa Week itself, so they extend to accommodate all appointment calls.

Here’s the list of DMV spas that are still accepting appointments well into the month of October. Take advantage of the $50 sessions of healing, pampering, and relaxation while you still can!

Socrates said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” While I always recommend positive self-talk, (the examined life is a joyful experience, for example), Socrates is suggesting that we step back from the hustle and bustle of day-to-day life and have a look at who we are and what we have become. Perhaps you will agree, the wise teacher has a point! Where, you might ask, do we start?

A great starting place for self-examination is comes in the form of an intriguing question: Are we human beings or human doers? Sometimes, I believe we should call ourselves human doers because it feels like we are always in action… we are doing this and doing that. We all have such busy lives – going to meetings, conference calls, our kids’ sports games, carpooling, running errands, and so on…like well-oiled machines.

The Community Counseling Services Center at GW’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development (GSEHD) is offering a free, anonymous education and screening program to assist in the public’s knowledge of depression and mental health treatment. As part of this free program, participants will complete a self-screening and have the opportunity to talk privately with a mental health professional.

If you’re familiar with Self Talk, you probably read or heard me or others refer to it as our thoughts, inner dialogue, or Board of Directors.

Our Self Talk can get quite loud at times, especially during times of transition and stress. Our Self Talk is then moving at turbo speed. So how can we calm down our thoughts when we lead such active, full lives? How can we decrease the overload and stress? How do we quiet down the chatter?

Since having thoughts or inner conversations is part of being human, and because our lives are so busy, here are some ways to help you quiet the mind:

Although Hurricane Irene is long gone, her fury is still being felt by millions of east coast residents as they wade through her aftermath in an attempt to return to normalcy. From severe flooding to lost power and water supply, the stories of all of our friends in all our communities affected are as expansive as those who have felt her aftermath.

Open publisher, Lulu, makes creating a children’s book easier for creators than ever.

Anyone can publish a children’s book – just ask 15-year-old Samantha McLeod. At such a young age she is not only a published book author, but also an award-winning one. After being inspired by her mother and autistic brother at age nine, she set out to write a book that aims to help people to better understand autism, but wanted to tell her story her way, through her experiences living it. After being rejected time and again by traditional means, McLeod was pleasantly surprised by the level of control and freedom over her work she found through Lulu’s open publishing platform.

“Lulu...makes it very easy to publish your work on your terms and...keep your work in its original state as it was meant to be,” explains McLeod. “I am glad and thankful to have been given this opportunity to keep my book all Samantha.”